Curette.



No. 667,726. Patented Feb. l2, I90l.

c. w. MODADE.

'CURETTE.

(Application filed m1. 6. 1899.

.(No Model.)

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CHARLES W. MCDADE, OF FARIBAULT, MINNESOTA.

CURETTE.

SPEGIFECATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 667,726, dated February 12, 1901.

Application fil d January 6, 1899. Serial No. 701,426. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, CHARLES WEBSTER MODADE, a citizen of the United States, residing at Faribault, in the county of Rice and State of Minnesota, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Cnrettes, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact specification.

This invention relates to curettes; and the aim of the present improvement is to produce a surgical instrument of this character designed to separate an adhered placenta from the wall of a womb without scarifying or tearing healthy tissue and one which will have an easy entrance and so proportioned as to accurately and positively press against the womb-wall by a simple rotation of the instrument through the medium of an exterior handle or grip.

he invention consists in the construction and arrangement of the several parts, which will be more fully hereinafter described and claimed.

In the drawings, Figure l is a perspective view of a curette embodying the features of the invention. Fig. 2 is a side elevation of the same. Fig. 3 is a section on the line 3 3 of Fig. 1. Fig. 4 is a plan view of a portion of the improved device, showing the relation of the spiral blade to the axis of the stem.

Similar numerals of reference are employed to indicate corresponding parts in the several views.

The numeral 1 designates a stem of suitable length for practical manipulation and provided at one end with a handle or grip 2. The metal of the extremity opposite the said handle or grip is flattened to form a blade 3, curved with a compound half-turn of a helix, as at 4: and 5, to produce an elongated spiral. The blade slopes or is beveled outwardly on opposite sides gradually from the back 7 to a reduced separating blunt edge 8, as clearly shown in Fig. 3, and is approximately of the same Width throughout a greater portion of its length and to an outer reduced extremity, where it tapers, as at 9, to a blunt or thickened probe-point 10. The said blade will be properly tempered to cause a maintenance of the shape specified, and the point 10 is in di rect alinement or longitudinally coaxial with the stem 1.

In use an entrance is effected by first inserting the probe-point 10 into the neck of the Womb and the handle 2 and the stem 1 are rotated and at the same time given the common curetting motion, so that the flat curved surface of the blade is caused to press against the inner surface of the womb and the reduced edge 8 separates the surface of the placenta from the wall of the Womb. As before indicated, the said reduced edge 8 is not sharp enough to cut healthy tissue, but has a sufficient penetrative property to cause it to pass easily between the two surfaces sought to be separated. By means of the elongation and curvature of the blade, as set forth, it is possible to have it begin to act in the manner desired without requiring a preliminary arrangement in a particular position. Moreover, it will be obvious that an instrument of this character having a blunt probe -point and slender blade with long curves can readily be made to enter the slightly-dilated neck of the Womb, which is normally about one and one-quarter inches long, and will enable the operator to quickly separate the fast placenta from the Womb, and thus materially check the over-plus hemorrhage incidental to such conditions and dispose the loosened placenta as a foreign body at the mouth of the womb and stimulate the contractions of the latter for expulsion of said body.

The elongated spiral blade of the improved device is wholly to one side of a line continued from the axis of the stem, the probe-point just touching said line, in contradistinction to that class of similar devices Which embody an Archimedean-screw principle, wherein the spiral convolutions are all equally distant from the axes of their stems. Curettes embodying the Archimedean-screw principle in Ioo Having thus described the invention, what is claimed as new is A curette comprising a stem having abandle at one extremity and an elongated flat spiral blade at the opposite extremity terminating in a blunt probe-point, the blade being wholly to one side of the central axis of the stem with the probe-point touching the plane of the latter, the blade being also re dueed transversely in an outward direction IO 10 form a separating edge.

CHARLES W. MGDADE.

Witnesses:

A. E. BROWN, P. S. KIMBALL. 

